Many users, especially in markets such as public safety, will use multiple devices, running multiple applications and services, throughout their day. These devices include things such as laptop devices, handheld computers, tablets, cellular telephones, public-safety radios, . . . , etc. Even when a device is not currently being used by an individual, application(s) may continue to run on device 400, utilizing valuable wide-area network (WAN) bandwidth.
The amount of bandwidth being used by WAN infrastructure could increase dramatically in scenarios where a large number of co-located users exist. For example, consider a situation where a large amount of police officers arrive on a scene, with each police officer carrying multiple devices. Any public-safety WAN servicing the scene may be quickly overwhelmed by the amount of data being transmitted.
What makes the above situation even worse is the fact that as public safety officers leave their vehicles, any devices left within their vehicles may be using valuable bandwidth, even though the devices are not being used by any public safety officer. Those devices that are brought into the field with the officers may suffer degraded service as a result of the bandwidth consumed by the applications running on unused devices.
As is evident, having devices utilize less WAN bandwidth is desirable. If network devices can be equipped with the necessary functionality to provide needed services via a local-area network (LAN), then precious WAN bandwidth may be conserved. Therefore, a need exists for a method and apparatus for dynamically providing services to a geographic area via a LAN that greatly reduces an amount of WAN bandwidth needed to service a given incident scene.
Skilled artisans will appreciate that elements in the figures are illustrated for simplicity and clarity and have not necessarily been drawn to scale. For example, the dimensions and/or relative positioning of some of the elements in the figures may be exaggerated relative to other elements to help to improve understanding of various embodiments of the present invention. Also, common but well-understood elements that are useful or necessary in a commercially feasible embodiment are often not depicted in order to facilitate a less obstructed view of these various embodiments of the present invention. It will further be appreciated that certain actions and/or steps may be described or depicted in a particular order of occurrence while those skilled in the art will understand that such specificity with respect to sequence is not actually required.